Total South Africa is excited to announce the redesign and reprint of a South African childhood hallmark; the SANParks collector’s animal posters, in celebration of the diverse South African ecosystems and the beautiful wildlife therein.

The posters are part of Total’s environmental stewardship, which creates a platform for education, partnerships, CSI programmes, and the likes. As such, the posters not only serve as a form of entertainment for their audience, the youth, but as a means of education, which comes with its own set of challenges (and opportunities). So how to engage with the youth – the custodians of our natural earth – by means of the very devices that typically draws a veil between educators and their students? By coding an integrated augmented reality system that brings the animals to life, we found a way into the hearts and minds of the youth at the place we lose them the most; their mobile devices!

Each of the six beautiful posters then tells a story, depicting various biomes of specific areas within South Africa. The posters were designed to neatly arrange the animals atop a map or graph, which details and highlights a unique characteristic of each set of animals based on where in South Africa they come from. Namely; A graph depicting the lifespan of the animals of the Bushveld Parks, a gradient detailing the speed of each of the animals of the Grassland Parks, a concentric clock depicting the level of endangeredness of each of the animals in the Arid Parks, a fountain which traces the original biome for each of the animals in the Eastern Parks, a split-page graph which tells us what each of the animals in the Cape Parks eat, and finally a concentric measurement band which tells us how big each of the birds in the Bushveld Parks are.

The augmented reality can then be experienced by scanning a circular code on the corner of each poster, which involves a third dimension, through which the animals can be closely navigated and observed. Through the augmented reality you can also listen to the sound of the general ambience of each biome which further creates an immersive experience.

The design process involved countless hours planning and production, with each element of each poster needing to be firstly sourced, then processed and treated, and finally meticulously placed within a well-considered and ornate information design system to get to the product we see today.